


Life Moves Fast (and Years Have Passed)

by SpideyFics



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Falling In Love Again, Fluff, Happy Ending, Kidfic, Meeting Again After High School, Michelle Jones is a Good Mom, Peter Parker is a Good Dad, parenting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:47:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28299942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpideyFics/pseuds/SpideyFics
Summary: Almost a decade after they last spoke, Peter and Michelle meet again and learn that love can find you when you least expect it.
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Comments: 68
Kudos: 53
Collections: Spideychelle Secret Santa - 2k20





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Eowima](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eowima/gifts).



> Dearest [Eowima](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eowima) \- I was so happy to get the chance to write for you! I love your writing, and you have always left the sweetest comments on my stories. You are a gem.
> 
> This story got away from me a little, so you'll get the first two chapters today, with quite a few more to follow over the next few weeks. I hope you enjoy this Hallmark Christmas Movie version of Spideychelle - I promise that despite some of the sadness threaded through this, it will be a fluffy fic with a happy ending. Merry Christmas!

Peter pulled his beanie further down over his ears, shivering in the wet, slushy snow that fell heavily from the blank white sky. He stuck his gloved hands in his armpits, hunched his shoulders and nestled his face against the warm wool of his scarf, huffing out a breath to briefly warm his frozen face.

The bell finally rang, and he grinned at the sight of his favorite person in the world bursting through the door and hurtling down the steps, her coat unzipped and her scarf messily wrapped around her neck. Her mittens dangled from the ends of her sleeves, and her school bag was clasped in one hand, bumping against her leg with every step.

She flung herself into his waiting arms and he hugged her tightly as she tucked her head beneath his chin. “Bug! Good day?”

Alyssa nodded enthusiastically, narrowly avoiding headbutting him. “Yes! I made a friend, and she shared her cookie with me at recess.”

“She did?” He kissed her cold nose and set her down, re-wrapping her scarf and zipping up her coat. “What’s your new friend called?” He rescued her hat from her bag and tugged it down over her twin braids.

Alyssa pulled her mittens on, the tip of her tongue caught between her teeth as she concentrated. “Maya. Her Daddy died so she moved here with her Mommy. Do you think her Daddy knows my Mommy?”

Peter’s throat tightened as he took her hand in his and shouldered her vintage Avengers backpack, inherited from his own elementary school days. “Maybe, Lys. Was it Maya’s first day?”

“Mmm hmm, and she’s gotta stay after school ‘cause her mom is at work,” she said, as she carefully walked along the crack in the sidewalk. “And Daddy, guess what? She loves Spider-Man _so much._ ” She gave him a gap-toothed grin. “She has Spider-Man sneakers and a Spider-Man lunch box, and I didn’t tell her about you.”

“Well, that’s because you’re better at keeping secrets than I am, bug,” he told her as they came to a stop at the crosswalk. “OK, tell me when you see the signal change to the man.”

Alyssa stared intently at the signal box. “It changed to the man! We’ve got – six zero. Sixty! We’ve got sixty seconds to cross.”

“And is it safe?” he prompted, casting his own eye over the traffic.

“It’s safe, so we can go, right?” At his nod, they stepped into the street, Peter counting down with the signal and Alyssa parroting him as she kept looking both ways. “Good job, Daddy!” she said, as they reached the curb.

He gave her a high five, the sound muffled to a hollow clap by their wool-covered hands. “Teamwork! Hey, I think we deserve a treat for crossing the street so well, and your Grandma and Happy are coming for dinner. Do you want to choose us a cake from _Oh, Crumbs_?”

Her eyes grew big and round. “Really?”

“Really,” he grinned. “And we’re going to decorate the Christmas tree after dinner, too.”

She pressed her mittened fist against her mouth. “Best day _ever_ ,” she whispered, as the sleet started to turn into snow, a few flakes settling in the curled ends of her braids and in her long eyelashes.

He wished he had his camera, but he made do with his phone, snapping a quick picture of her in the snow, her face full of innocent joy. “Let’s get that cake, huh?”

The bakery was just a block over, and the two of them skipped hand-in-hand through the rapidly thickening snowflakes.

The shop was brightly lit, its windows dressed for Christmas. A bell rang to announce their arrival as Peter ushered his daughter inside with a reminder to wipe her feet. The scents of vanilla, cinnamon and ginger mingled in the air, and his stomach rumbled in response.

“I’ll be right out, take a look around,” a voice called from the back.

“Thanks!” he called back as Alyssa ran straight to the display counter, her hands and nose pressed against the glass.

“I want carrot cake, please,” she said, looking back at Peter.

He pulled out his wallet and handed her fifteen dollars. “Carrot cake sounds great, bug. Ask for the small one, OK?”

She nodded, her little face narrowed in fierce concentration. “Can I get a small carrot cake, please?” she murmured under her breath, nervously working the bills in her mittened fingers. He’d had been working on lessening her shyness when speaking to people, and getting her to pay for things seemed to be helping.

Peter stayed right by her side, eyeing a plate full of Christmas cookie samples. He was just reaching out to take one when a sudden voice made him jump.

“Peter?”

He looked up to see a face he hadn’t seen or spoken to in over eight years. “Michelle? Wow, I didn’t know you were back in town. Last I heard, you were in Chicago.”

She brushed her hands over the front of her apron before tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “It just felt like time to come home,” she said, the slightest hint of a wobble in her voice. “How’s May?”

“Yeah, yeah, she’s good. Married to Happy now, if you can believe that.” He moved to stand behind Alyssa, holding on to her shoulders and feeling like a coward for hiding behind her. “Em – Michelle – this is Alyssa, my daughter.”

Michelle blinked, visibly shocked, but recovered quickly. “Hi, Alyssa.”

“Hi,” Alyssa chirped. “Can I get a small carrot cake, please?”

Michelle laughed, the awkwardness lifting slightly. “Sure you can. And you know what? Little girls with lovely manners get a free cookie sample, and their daddies do too.” She tipped her head in the direction of the sample plate, and Peter took two, handing one to Alyssa.

He bit into it and moaned. “These are amazing,” he said through a mouthful of crumbs, a shower of cookie debris scattering over his scarf and coat. “This is your recipe, right?”

“You remember?” Michelle asked, as she slid their cake into a box.

“How could I forget?” he said with a little smile. “They’re the best.”

“They’re on offer today - ten dollars for a dozen,” she said, slipping the cake box into a paper grocery bag.

“Please, Daddy?” Alyssa said, looking up from nibbling the edges of her cookie.

He pulled out his wallet again, handing her another ten. “Menace,” he said fondly. “How can I resist that little face or those cookies?”

Michelle slid a pre-packaged box of cookies inside the bag and looked over the till at Alyssa. “That’ll be $22.68.”

Alyssa stood on tiptoe and pushed the money over the counter. “Keep the change,” she said, and Michelle smiled, her whole face lighting up.

“Thanks, Alyssa.” She dropped the change into the tip jar and handed the bag to Peter. “Say hi to May for me.”

Peter hung the bag off his wrist. “It was great seeing you,” he said. “My number hasn’t changed, so if you still have it, message me and we can have a mini-reunion or something.”

Her face dropped and she ducked her head. “I – uh, I have a lot on right now, so I don’t know if I’ll have the time.”

“Hey, no pressure. It’d just be nice, that’s all. I know May’d love to see you, Ned and Betty too.”

“Maybe,” she shrugged, pushing a curl of hair off her face with the heel of her hand. “Hey, would you flip the sign to closed on your way out please?”

He knew a brush off when he heard one. He took Alyssa’s hand again and smiled awkwardly at Michelle. “Have a good evening.”

She returned the smile as she started cleaning down the counter. “You too. Bye, Alyssa, it was nice to meet you.”

Peter flipped the sign on the way out, softly pulling the door closed and making the bell jingle gently.

Alyssa walked quietly by his side for four blocks, still happily eating her cookie. “Your friend is nice,” she said, as they reached the entrance to their building, pausing to stomp the snow from their boots. “I like her.” She put her arms up and Peter lifted her high enough to reach the number pad on the lock.

The door released with a nasal buzz, and they started up the five flights of stairs to their apartment. “I went to school with her,” he said. “She was friends with Uncle Ned, Auntie Betty and me.”

“Did you have an argument?” Alyssa asked as they reached the last flight of stairs.

“No, Michelle moved away for college and we just lost touch.” He didn’t know how to explain to his five-year-old that his high-school almost-romance had withered before it had the chance to fully bloom, stifled by his identity reveal and a year spent on the run before he was finally absolved.

“She makes good cookies,” she said, as she jumped from the last stair onto the landing of their floor. “It was the best cookie ever. It was like the cookie Maya had.”

Michelle’s cookies were infinitely better than the generic crap he bought from the Dollar Tree every so often, but he still wasn’t sure why he’d blown another ten bucks on top of the cake, when that alone wiped out the rest of their food budget until pay day. Oh well, he could make do with a week of PB&J sandwiches for lunch. “Maybe Maya’s mom went to _Oh, Crumbs_ too,” he said, as he opened their front door.

The smell of garlic and tomatoes wafted out of the apartment, and May waved at them from the living room, Happy raising a hand from the kitchen. “Hi, babies!”

Alyssa kicked her boots off and ran across the room, launching herself into May’s lap. “Grandma! We got cake and cookies and we saw Daddy’s friend Michelle!”

May raised an eyebrow at Peter. “ _Michelle,_ Michelle?” she asked, as she started removing Alyssa’s coat.

“Yup,” he confirmed, hanging his own coat up by the door. “She’s working at _Oh, Crumbs_. Said to say hi.” He leaned over the back of the sofa to kiss the top of May’s head, and her free hand came up to briefly cup his face as she looked up at him.

“You OK?” she said.

He gave her a lopsided grin. “Yeah, I’m good. Just weird seeing her after all this time, you know? A lot’s happened in the last few years. I told her to text me if she still has my number, but she didn’t seem too keen on the idea.”

May gave him a sympathetic look. “Why don’t you go see if Happy needs any help in the kitchen, and I’ll throw the bug into the bath?”

“I want unicorn bubbles, please,” Alyssa piped up.

“If Madam would like unicorn bubbles, then unicorn bubbles are what she will get,” May said with an atrocious English accent. “Peter, do we have any unicorns that can fart in Alyssa’s bath?”

Alyssa giggled, covering her mouth with her hand. “Grandma, you’re silly!”

May scooped her up and held her at her hip like a football, Alyssa’s arms and legs dangling as she shrieked. “Go do boy stuff. I want some girl time with my grandbaby.” She hauled the grandbaby in question off to the bathroom, giving a little jump every other step and making Alyssa squeal as she was jolted like a ragdoll.

Peter did as he was told and headed into the cramped kitchen area. “Hey Happy. It smells great in here.”

The other man smiled. “How you doin’, Pete? It must have been tough seeing Michelle again.”

Peter sat on a stool at the tiny stub of a breakfast bar. “Weird. Totally didn’t expect to see her working in the local bakery after she ran off to Chicago and never looked back.”

Happy put an obviously homemade baguette and a container full of garlic butter in front of Peter. “Stuff that and then throw it in the oven,” he said, as he returned to assembling a salad. “I pre-sliced the bread so it’s good to go.”

Peter did as he was told, washing his hands before starting to cram the butter into the split running the length of the bread. “I hope she does get in touch,” he said as he worked. “I know it’s been years since we spoke, but I’ve missed her.”

“Don’t take it too hard if she doesn’t, kid. A lot can change in nearly a decade,” Happy said, tossing dressing through the salad.

Peter snorted as he tightly wrapped the garlic-stuffed bread in foil and placed it in the oven. “Like getting married, having a baby, and being widowed, you mean?”

“Exactly,” Happy said. “If she’s back in Queens, that probably means something happened to bring her home. You were both kids the last time you saw one another, and as much as it pains me to say it, you’re an adult now. People change, grow apart. Sometimes the past is best left just that.”

“I guess I didn’t realize just how much I’d missed her until I saw her again,” Peter confessed. “And not as a girlfriend - we managed like two dates - but being her friend, you know? Listening to her conspiracy theories, or watching true crime documentaries. Just hanging out with her.” He took the salad bowl from Happy and set it on the dining table.

Happy clapped him on the shoulder before filling the glasses on the table with ice water. “Maybe seeing you will make her nostalgic and she’ll get in touch.”

“Maybe,” Peter echoed, as the oven timer buzzed. He busied himself helping Happy serve the food, but he couldn’t stop wondering what had made Michelle return home after all this time.

***

Michelle wearily climbed the stairs to her apartment, hanging onto the handrail and hauling herself up, wishing that her parents had found her a place with an elevator. Her legs ached after a long day spent on her feet, and she just wanted to eat and go to bed.

Her feet dragged against the industrial grey carpet that covered the floor, and the lingering smell of garlic and garam masala from her neighbors’ dinners made her stomach give an angry growl.

Her mom was waiting for her, standing at the stove in the pocket-sized kitchen and stirring a pot of something that smelled amazing.

“Hi Mom,” she said quietly, mindful of the relatively late hour. “Everything OK?”

“It’s all good, baby. How was work?”

Michelle dropped her bag by the door and hung up her coat before slouching over to the kitchenette and slumping over the counter. “OK for a first day, I guess. I miss being my own boss, but it’s a job.”

Vanessa ladled a serving of soup into a bowl and set it down at the small breakfast bar, along with a hot roll. “Eat,” she said, taking a moment to smooth a loose wisp of hair back off Michelle’s forehead. “You won’t be working there forever.”

“I know. I just hate that my first day was today. The timing couldn’t have been worse.” As she inhaled the soup, she watched her mom bustle around the kitchen, pouring the leftover soup into a container and washing out the pot. “Thanks, Mom,” she said, slipping down from the stool and catching Vanessa in a hug.

Her mom patted her back before leaning back to look at her. “You’re welcome, honey. It’s so good to have you home.”

Michelle felt tears begin to gather and she ducked her head as Vanessa pulled her back into a hug. “Sorry. Sorry, I’m all right, I’m just tired and emotional,” she sobbed, her face pressed against her mom’s shoulder.

Vanessa took her by the hand and led her over to the sofa, wrapping her up in a tight embrace. “Don’t apologize, ‘chelle. You just had the worst three years of your life, then uprooted your whole world and moved 700 miles across the country. You’re allowed to be emotional.”

Michelle shifted until she was stretched out along the sofa, her head pillowed on her mom’s thigh like she was a teenager again. “I saw Peter,” she said, knuckling the tears away. “He came into the bakery with his daughter.”

“He has a daughter?” her mom said, her hand smoothing over Michelle’s hair. “How was he?”

Michelle shrugged. “He was Peter. Sweet, earnest, absolutely wrapped around his little girl’s finger. Seeing him just made me realize how long it’s been since we talked. I wish I’d kept in touch like I promised, because I’ve missed so much. He told me to message him if I wanted.”

“You should,” Vanessa said. “It’d do you good to reconnect with your old friends here.”

“I haven’t spoken to any of them in nearly ten years, Mom. They’ve probably forgotten who I am.” She sat up, pressing the heels of her hands against her eyes until she saw stars.

“No one could forget you,” her mom said, patting her hand. “Why don’t you go shower while I finish clearing up?”

Michelle kissed Vanessa’s cheek then stood up. “Mom, I appreciate it, but go home, I can do it. Dad will be wondering where you are.”

Her mom protested, but five minutes later Michelle was standing at the window, watching her mom scrape off her snow-frosted car before driving cautiously away. The snow was thick and heavy and starting to settle over the now-frozen sleet of earlier, making the usually drab street beautiful.

She finished tidying the kitchen then pulled down the blinds and turned off the lights, ready for a shower and bed, even though it was only 8pm.

She crept quietly through the apartment, and gingerly opened the door to the smallest bedroom. A moon-shaped night-light filled the room with a gentle, buttery glow, and she crouched next to the bed and gently smoothed the blankets over the little girl sleeping there.

Her daughter stirred, wrinkling her nose and opening the eye that wasn’t mashed against her pillow. “Mommy?” she yawned, curling her small hand in her blankets and drawing them in towards her chin until she was cocooned.

“Hi, baby,” Michelle said, stroking her little face. “I missed you. How was school?”

“Missed you too.” her daughter murmured. “I liked school. I have a friend called Lys.” She sighed and began to slip back into sleep.

Michelle made sure she was covered up and pressed a kiss against her forehead. “Night, Maya. I love you to the moon and back.”

“T’ the moon,” Maya mumbled.

Michelle stood in the doorway until she was sure that Maya had fallen asleep again, then pulled the door to, leaving it open just a crack so she could hear if she was needed during the night.

After a quick shower, she climbed into bed and huddled under a comforter and a pile of blankets to ward off the chill that hung in the air.

Impulsively, she snagged her phone from the nightstand and opened her contacts, scrolling through until she found Peter’s details, complete with a picture of him as a goofy, smiling teenager. Despite effectively cutting him out of her life, she’d never been able to bring herself to delete his entry, transferring it to each new phone.

  
She clicked on the WhatsApp icon under his name and the chat screen opened, blank and intimidating, with a recent picture of Peter next to his name. Chewing on her bottom lip for a moment, she briefly considered backing out, but instead she started typing.

She left him on read and plugged her phone in, taking a moment to look at the lock screen picture of Christopher and Maya. Her breath caught in her throat for a moment as she stared at her husband’s big smile and soft, dark eyes that were so full of love and happiness even close to the end of his life.

Turning the lamp off, she curled up on her side and wished that she were back in Chicago, with her little family of three still intact, and cried herself to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Peter laughed and placed his phone on to the coffee table as Ned returned from the kitchen with a bowl of popcorn. “Michelle says hi,” he said, snagging a handful of warm kernels and tossing them into his mouth.

Ned sat down at the other end of the sofa, Alyssa sandwiched between the two of them. “We should meet up with her,” he said as Alyssa snuggled into his side, her hand reaching out to sneak some popcorn. “I still can’t believe she’s back in New York. I never thought she’d come home.”

“She said she wanted to be closer to her parents now they’ve both retired,” Peter shrugged. “I invited her to come over tonight, but she has plans.” He shook out a fuzzy green blanket covered with cartoon reindeer and draped it over their laps, before hitting play on the movie.

Alyssa squirmed around until her head was in Ned’s lap, and her feet in Peter’s. She watched _Home Alone_ intently for a few minutes, then nudged Peter’s abdomen with her toes. “Daddy?”

“Yeah, bug?”

“Can Maya please come play after school one day if her mom says yes?” she asked. “She’s my best friend.”

It made him nostalgic for the day he met Ned in kindergarten, an instant friendship forming. If Alyssa and Maya were apparently best friends for life two weeks after meeting, who was he to argue with that, given that Ned was still by his side twenty-five years later? “Sure. Point Maya out to me on Monday and I’ll talk to her mom about a play date.”

“Thanks, Daddy.” Alyssa settled down and was soon engrossed in the movie, fidgeting with the edge of the blanket.

Peter tried to concentrate on the movie, but his mind kept drifting back to Michelle. They’d been messaging back and forth every single day of the last two weeks, but other than a few mentions of Alyssa, they’d kept it strictly neutral, with no mention of anything personal. He respected her privacy, but he was intensely curious about her life during the years of silence. She’d gone to college in Chicago with the goal of becoming a lawyer, but had somehow ended up back in Queens working in a bakery. Trying to strike up a conversation about her return home felt too awkward and impersonal over WhatsApp.

Unwilling to disturb Alyssa, who was raptly watching the screen, he stretched his leg out towards the coffee table and stuck his phone to the bottom of his foot, carefully bending his knee until the phone was within his reach.

He locked his phone, feeling a little disappointed and vaguely worried that he was being too pushy. Michelle clearly didn’t object to seeing him, but part of him wondered if she was just being polite.

“Dude, you OK?” Ned said.

Peter tucked his phone between the arm of the sofa and the seat cushion. “I’m good. Just worrying if asking Michelle to hang out with us is crossing a line.”

Ned scoffed at him. “Do you really think MJ would let you cross a line and not tell you? Relax.”

He knew Ned was right – Michelle had never had a problem speaking her mind – but he didn’t want her to think he was trying to push his way back into her life, or that he wanted anything other than her friendship.

Sure, they’d been messaging late into the night, falling back into their old back and forth, and it felt like the break in communication hadn’t happened, but that didn’t mean she was ready to settle back into all aspects of their friendship. They weren’t strangers, but they weren’t quite friends anymore, and she didn’t know anything about his life – other than Alyssa – after the age of twenty-two.

“You’re right,” he said as Alyssa suddenly wriggled upright and crawled into his lap. He cradled her like a baby, wrapping her up in his arms and tucking the blanket in around her. She snuffled tiredly against his chest, letting out a soft little sigh as she fell asleep. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head before resting his cheek there, looking over at Ned. “I wish she’d been here for everything that happened the last few years, you know? Alyssa adores her, and Kayla would’ve loved her.” He scrubbed a knuckle under his eye, wiping away an unexpected tear. “Sorry. Christmas movies make me nostalgic.”

Ned’s bottom lip trembled at the mention of Kayla – he was, and always would be a sympathetic crier. “You wouldn’t have stood a chance against the two of them,” he said after clearing his throat.

“I miss Kayla,” Peter whispered brokenly, as the tears fell despite his effort to keep them in check, hit by a sudden, intense wave of grief that he hadn’t felt in a while. “I hate that she never got to see Alyssa grow up, or meet Michelle, or see you lose your mind when Betty said she was pregnant. It’s not fair.” He took a shuddering breath, trying to get his emotions back under control.

Ned shuffled along the sofa and put his arm around Peter’s back, pulling him into a side-hug. “I know, man, I miss her too.”

Peter dropped his head against Ned’s shoulder. “Thanks,” he sniffed. They sat in silence as the movie credits finished and Netflix defaulted back to the home screen and started playing trailers for other Christmas movies.

“I should probably go, Betty wants to go to this parenting fair that starts at like 8am,” Ned said after a few minutes. “Are you going to be OK?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Peter assured him. “Say hi to Betty for me, and I’ll see you next week.”

Ned let himself out, locking the door behind him – he’d had a key to the apartment since Peter had moved in – and Peter turned off the TV, leaving the room lit only by the tree lights.

His daughter was a warm, solid weight in his arms, and he didn’t want to let her go. She was already five ( _and a half, Daddy!)_ and he knew that it wouldn’t be long before she outgrew cuddles and falling asleep on him.

They had plenty of love in their lives, but when the door closed at the end of the day, it was just the two of them.

***

Michelle spent most of her shift in a state of slightly nervous anticipation. Peter clearly wanted to pick up their friendship from where they’d left off all those years ago, and she appreciated that he was being low-pressure about it. Texting was easy, but talking in person? She wasn’t ready to talk about Christopher or her daughter and didn’t know how to bring them up after two weeks of daily texting with Peter.

Peter and Alyssa showed up five minutes before closing, bursting through the door in a flurry of snow and excited chatter. “Hi, Michelle!” Alyssa said, running on the spot and drying off her boots on the doormat. “There’s so much snow outside!”

Michelle left the counter and walked over to turn the door sign to closed. “Hi, Alyssa,” she said. “I hear you really like my cookies.”

Alyssa nodded, pulling her hands out of her mittens. “Daddy ate _three_ ,” she whispered.

Peter, who already had rosy cheeks from the cold, still managed to blush, but he shrugged and didn’t deny it. “What can I say, they’re good cookies.”

Michelle laughed, grabbing the box she’d put aside earlier. “We had a few broken ones left over so I added them to the box for free,” she said. “And if you want any bread or pastries, you can fill a bag for a $5 donation to the food bank on Ascan. The bread freezes really well, and the pastries are good for a couple of days.”

“Sure,” Peter said. “Could I get three of those wholegrain loaves and whatever pastries you can squeeze in, please?”

She was in the middle of bagging up Peter’s order when the bell over the door jingled. Frustrated that someone had ignored the closed sign, she turned around to give them a piece of her mind and froze when she saw her dad standing in the doorway, Maya on his hip.

“Mommy!” Maya squealed, wiggling in her grandfather’s arms until he set her down. She ran across the store and behind the counter, wrapping herself around Michelle’s legs like a limpet.

“Maya!” Alyssa gasped. “Daddy! That’s Maya from school!”

Maya squealed, peeled herself away from Michelle and ran to Alyssa, the two little girls grabbing one another in an exuberant hug that threatened to send them toppling to the floor.

Peter was watching wide-eyed, his mouth agape. “You’re Maya’s mom?” he said, looking at Michelle.

“And you’re Lys’s dad,” Michelle countered, because of _course_ their daughters had found one another in a city of millions. It was just more evidence that the universe saw her life as one big, cosmic joke.

Her dad stood inside the doorway, looking as awkward as she’d ever seen him. “Uh – the weather is due to get worse, I wanted to get Maya back before people start driving like idiots.”

She gave her dad a small smile. “Thanks, Dad. I’ll call you and Mom later, OK? Drive safe.”

Her dad took the hint, giving both her and Maya a kiss and Peter a wave before heading off into the snow and leaving the four of them alone.

Unlike their parents, Alyssa and Maya were happily chatting away with their heads together. They almost looked like they could be sisters, with their warm brown skin and dark, curly hair.

Peter was looking at her, his big, brown eyes soft and full of compassion, and she realized that he knew about her dead husband, probably courtesy of her daughter via his own. She braced herself for the ‘I’m sorry,’ and was surprised when he didn’t make an awkward, oblique reference, instead nodding towards the two girls.

“Can you believe that the two of them found one another without us knowing?” he said, handing her the money for the cookies and donation. “Other than you, Maya has been Alyssa’s favorite subject for the last two weeks.”

Michelle rang up the purchase in a daze. “Maya’s been talking non-stop about her friend Lys since she started her new school. She’s been bugging me to set up a play date.”

Peter laughed. “Alyssa was going to point Maya out to me on Monday so we could arrange something. I guess she doesn’t need to now.”

She started bagging up the remaining stock, surprised by how Peter had responded to finding out she had a daughter that she hadn’t told him about. She’d expected anger, accusations of keeping things from him, but instead he was acting like nothing had changed. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about her,” she said, as she packaged the last loaf. “The timing just never felt right.”

“I’m sure you have a good reason,” he told her. “It’s been a long time since we talked, and I think we’ve both had stuff we’ve been dealing with the past few years.”

She packed the bags into IKEA totes that she kept at the store for the sole purpose of the daily food bank runs, finding it easier to deal with two heavier bags than lots of lighter ones. “I guess we should probably catch up,” she said, as she pulled on her coat. “I could call this evening.”

“Sure,” Peter said, picking up the totes in addition to his own bag. “We pass Ascan on our way home, I’ll carry these for you.”

Michelle didn’t bother protesting – the totes were heavy – and turned out the lights, Peter herding the girls outside and waiting for her to lock up.

The snow was falling thick and fast, deep enough that it was almost impossible to see where the street met the sidewalk. Maya and Alyssa walked hand in hand, the snow reaching almost up to their knees and making their progress slow until Peter hopped ahead of them and stamped it down.

The food bank was four buildings down across the street, and Michelle pressed the buzzer, identifying herself over the intercom.

Taylor answered the door, smiling widely. “Hey!” they said, as Peter unzipped the totes. “Thanks, Michelle.”

Michelle pulled the bags out of the totes, handing them over to Taylor. “You’re welcome,” she said, as she passed over the last bag then folded down the totes. “The bread will still be good tomorrow. I ran it all through the slicer for you.”

“Perfect,” Taylor said, before looking over at Peter, then back at her, raising an eyebrow. “You two know each other?”

“Yeah, we went to school together,” Peter answered. “Do you still need me to come in tomorrow, or did Cassie pick up the shift?”

“Nah, you’re good,” Taylor told him. “But if you’re around Christmas Eve morning, we wouldn’t say no to you helping out for a couple hours.”

“No problem, just message me timings and I’ll be there.” Peter and Taylor fist-bumped before Taylor said goodbye and closed the door.

Michelle gave into her curiosity. “You volunteer here?” she asked.

“A few hours here and there, yeah. I went through a rough patch a few years ago where money was tight for a while, and this place really helped me out. I like to give back, you know?” He said it so casually that she couldn’t help but admire his candidness.

“That’s really nice of you,” she said, holding out a hand for Maya, who stomped through the snow to her side as Alyssa went to Peter. “I need to get this one home before I lose her in the snow. I’ll call you around eight and we can fill one another in on everything.”

Peter swung Alyssa up to sit on his shoulders. “Eight works for me. Say bye to Maya and MJ, bug,” he said, apparently unaware of slipping back into using her old nickname as Alyssa waved at them.

Michelle hitched Maya up into a piggyback, and started walking, Peter still by her side. “Are you following me?” she joked.

“I guess we live in the same direction,” he said, as they crossed the street. “Remind me to send you my address later, we can work out a playdate for the girls.”

They walked side by side for three blocks until they reached her apartment building, coming to a halt. “Well, this is us,” she said, setting Maya down.

Peter just looked at her, his eyebrows raised. “You’re joking, right?”

Defensiveness flared – the apartment block wasn’t fancy, but it wasn’t shitty enough for that kind of reaction. “No. Why?”

Instead of answering, Peter took Alyssa down from her perch and held her in front of the keypad. The system buzzed as the lock released, and he gave Michelle a lopsided grin, holding the door open and making a sweeping _after you_ gesture. “This is us too.”

Speechless, she followed the girls inside, Peter closing the door behind them, and began the seemingly endless climb up the stairs, expecting Alyssa and Peter to leave them on one of the lower floors. Instead they carried on right to the last floor.

Michelle came to a stop, her hands on her hips as she caught her breath. “You live on this floor?”

“Yup. 504.” He gestured down the hall in the direction of his apartment. “You?”

“503.”

Peter had the audacity to _giggle_ like the absolute loser he was, and she’d forgotten how she loved the sound of his laughter. “You mean we’re neighbors and didn’t even know? All those evenings we’ve been talking and you were right across the hall.”

They walked side-by-side to their apartments, the girls racing ahead chattering excitedly about living opposite one another. Michelle fished her keys out of her pocket as Peter did the same, both pausing in front of their respective doors.

“We still on for eight?” Peter asked, turning back to look at her.

“I am if you are,” she said.

With one last grin, Peter shooed Alyssa into his apartment, the bells on the Christmas wreath jingling merrily as he closed the door.

Michelle stood in front of her locked door, staring in the direction of Peter’s apartment until Maya tugged at her hand.

“Mommy, I gotta pee, quick!” she said urgently, shuffling back and forth.

Michelle opened the door and Maya ran for the bathroom, leaving her standing in the entryway, still in complete disbelief that Peter Parker was just a few feet away and that with all the apartments on the market in Queens, her parents had chosen this one not knowing her kind-of-ex was just across the hall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can see the full size version of the illo of Peter, Alyssa and Ned [here](https://64.media.tumblr.com/de1a262148abc276d56f222eeb1dd0f4/811148cd828ca2f4-1c/s640x960/0077fea54813fc2304006491fc39a76222c9e984.png).


	3. Chapter 3

The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur. Michelle washed and deep conditioned Maya’s hair and then her own before they crawled into a blanket fort and read for a couple of hours, followed by a late dinner. By seven, Maya was drooping over the arm of the sofa and Michelle bundled her off to bed, trying to ignore her nerves.

When the clock ticked over to eight, she was just about to pick up her phone to call Peter when she heard a wet-sounding thud against her door. She pulled a hoodie over her pajamas and cautiously opened the door to find Peter sitting in his doorway, with his back resting against the frame, and one hand pointing a webshooter in her general direction, the apparent source of the ball of webbing that was clumped on her door. He was barefoot, dressed in plaid pajama pants and a NASA hoodie, and his damp hair fell in soft curls and waves over his forehead, making him look like the teenager she’d known all those years ago.

“Hey,” he said, his voice soft. “Figured this would be just as easy as picking up the phone.”

She mirrored his position in her own doorway, bracing her back and feet against the frame. “Alyssa asleep?” she asked.

“Yeah. She was out like a light about two hours ago, I think the excitement was too much for her.” He reached for something at his side and produced a remote-controlled miniature skateboard, setting it on the ground before placing a novelty Christmas mug on top. “I made you hot chocolate,” he said, steering the skateboard across the eight feet of floor between them.

The hot chocolate was topped with a swirl of aerosol whipped cream, and three mini-marshmallows sat proudly at the peak, a candy cane hooked over the side. She was strangely touched that he remembered the way she liked to drink hot chocolate, and amused that he was still nerdy enough to have a remote-controlled skateboard. “Thanks,” she said, taking a sip. “But couldn’t you have just walked it over?”

“Where’s the fun in that?” he replied, guiding the skateboard back across the hallway. “Besides, this way I can tell myself I’m a responsible parent for not leaving my child alone in the apartment.” He drank from his Rudolph head-shaped mug, leaving a smear of whipped cream on the end of his nose. “So, do you want to go first, or shall I?”

She took a deep breath, still not quite ready to talk about Christopher. “You. And you have whipped cream on your nose.”

He wiped it away with the back of his hand and took a deep breath of his own. “So first off, I should probably tell you I’m a lone parent. Kayla – Alyssa’s mom – she died the day before Thanksgiving five years ago, when Alyssa was six months old. She was on her way home from work and was hit by a car that ran a red light.”

“Shit,” she whispered, at a loss for words. She’d been curious about Alyssa’s mom, but hadn’t imagined that Peter had experienced the loss of his partner, just like she had.

“Yup,” he agreed, scuffing a hand through his hair. “I was twenty-five and suddenly a widowed single parent. I didn’t function at anything but a basic level for the first year. All I did was cry and look after Alyssa. I lost my job, and the insurance didn’t pay out for five months, so things were pretty rough for a while.”

“What was Kayla like?” she asked softly, wanting to know more about the woman who had loved Peter the way she hadn’t been ready to.

Peter’s smile was wistful, his eyes sad. “Amazing. She had this way of making everyone feel like her friend, and she had so much love to give. And oh man, her smile was the best, it just lit up her whole face. She made everything better.”

He pulled his phone from the pouch of his hoodie and tapped the screen a couple of times, projecting a holograph of a Black woman with closely cropped hair, the aforementioned dimpled smile on her face, and a tiny baby – presumably Alyssa – cradled against her shoulder. Kayla looked exhausted but radiant. “I took this the day we brought Lys home from the hospital,” he said, his gaze fixed on the image, and his face tight with grief.

Michelle felt strongly emotional seeing the picture of a young woman who would never grow old, imagining a universe where she’d been brave enough to be Peter’s friend after their break-up. Would she and Kayla have been friends? Would their daughters have grown up together, best friends from the cradle? “She was beautiful,” she said, her voice hushed, and a little choked with barely held back tears.

“Way out of my league,” Peter agreed, swiping to a photo of their wedding day, Kayla elegant and slender in clinging white lace, standing half a head taller than Peter, who was wearing dress pants and shirt with a waistcoat, smiling at his bride like she was the center of his universe. “You’d never know it from the photo, but she was four months pregnant when we got married. The wedding was already planned before we found out about Alyssa.”

Michelle studied the steady stream of photos that were full of joy and love destined for an unhappy end. “How did the two of you meet?”

“I came off worse in a fight and fell off my web right in front of her window,” he chuckled. “Landed ass first in a trashcan, so she helped me out and took me to her apartment to patch me up.”

She suspected there was more to the story than that, because Peter being injured enough to be taken back to a stranger’s apartment would require something pretty significant, but she didn’t push it. “That’s one hell of a meet cute,” she said. “You’re telling me that poor woman rescued your garbage-covered ass and came back for more?”

“I’m told I have a magnetic personality,” he protested. “But yeah. I had a nasty head wound, so she removed the mask, we got talking, and all of a sudden it was two years later and we were married with a kid on the way.”

“I think we would’ve been friends if we’d met,” Michelle said as Peter closed the projection and pocketed his phone.

“Oh, you’d’ve loved one another. She worked for the ACLU Racial Justice program, interned with them right out of college and then got a job with them as a paralegal. She really wanted to help make a difference, you know?” He set his mug down and pulled the cuffs of his hoodie down over his hands before wrapping his arms around himself. “She planned on going back to school to get her law degree, had a place at Columbia for the following Fall, but …”

They sat quietly for a moment, not looking at one another until Michelle cleared her throat. “My husband was called Christopher,” she said, staring at a smudge of black on her doorframe. “He was vice-president of the Organization of Black Students at UChicago, and we met reaching for the same book at the library, how cliché is that?” She started her own photo slideshow, Christopher’s round, beaming face projected in the air between her and Peter, and she looked away, knowing she’d start crying if she didn’t. “We didn’t start dating until after our senior year finals, but we were friends all through college. He was built like a linebacker but played chess and studied philosophy. He was such a nerd – loved LEGO, went to Star Trek conventions, and was the most gentle, thoughtful person I’ve ever known.” She left _other than you_ unsaid, given that it was clear they’d both found partners similar to one another in personality if not in looks. “And he was borderline _obsessed_ with Spider-Man.”

“Alyssa mentioned that Maya loves Spider-Man, and I spotted the ornaments on your tree. I guess she got that from her dad?”

“And me. I might have fallen out of touch with you, but I never stopped caring. I kept up with the news.” The door frame smudge continued to hold her attention as she told her own story. “Chris got sick about three years ago. He kept getting all these weird bruises, dropped a whole lot of weight, but he’d been working out so he put it down to that. Then he started having night sweats, and getting short of breath when we walked anywhere, so he finally went to the doctor and found out he had leukemia.”

Peter winced, knowing the end of the story before she got there. “That must have been rough, especially with a toddler.”

“It was a nightmare. Chris was too ill to work more than a few hours a week, and I’d finished grad school but didn’t sit the bar because I found out I was pregnant, so I couldn’t find a job other than working for one of our friends in their bakery. And Chris just kept getting sicker and sicker, with round after round of chemo until they decided he needed a stem cell transplant.”

“Did he get one?”

“He was Black and Filipino, so they couldn’t find a good enough match. He died August last year.” Christopher’s photo shimmered in her peripheral vision, and she couldn’t bring herself to look at it. Peter had seemed to have no hesitation in looking at the photo of Kayla, and she wondered if time had given him some distance, made it easier to see what he'd lost. She couldn’t imagine ever reaching the point that an image of Christopher wouldn’t subsume her with grief.

She shut down the hologram and risked looking over at Peter. He was red-eyed, one hand threaded into his hair and his elbow propped against his knee. “God Em, I don’t know how you dealt with all of that. I don’t think I could’ve.”

“You _have_ dealt with it. You get up every morning and live for your kid, and you just keep on doing it day after day.” She knew grief wasn’t something to compare, but she didn’t know what was worse – someone suddenly being ripped violently away without warning, or watching the slow, gradual decline of the person you loved until they were just a shadow, ready to fade completely. “Does it ever get any easier?”

He gave her a smile that contained no joy, just sympathy. “Easier isn’t the word I’d use. The grief just becomes part of you, tucked up deep inside in this tight little knot and waiting to leak out when you least expect it.”

“Sometimes I finish a book and think ‘I’ll tell Chris to read this’,” she confessed. “It’s like my brain still hasn’t processed that he’s gone.”

“All these years later, I still sleep on the left side of our bed,” Peter said after a moment. “The worst thing is when I turn over first thing in the morning, and I forget that she isn’t here anymore. It feels like losing her all over again.”

They fell silent, Michelle wrapping her hands around the mug of hot chocolate to try and relieve the chill that had nothing to do with the temperature. Sixteen months after Christopher’s death, she still felt raw and exposed, like all her nerves were laid bare, and talking about him made her ache.

Peter broke the quiet. “OK, so I have to ask – the bakery thing. That’s probably one of the last things I’d expect you to do for a living.”

“I realized I was good at cake decorating when I went to work for our friend,” she said. “As Chris got worse and had to quit work, I started making cakes at home. Between that and the bakery, it was enough to keep us going until the accelerated death benefit paid out.” She pulled her phone out again and projected the images from her portfolio.

“Whoa, you’re not kidding, you _are_ good,” Peter said. “When you said cakes, I thought you meant like the ones from your bakery, but that’s _Cake_ _Boss_ level.” He exclaimed over every cake with his typical enthusiasm, asking her how she achieved certain effects or constructed the cakes, and she changed positions to sit cross-legged in her doorway, his earnest interest putting her at ease.

“So, what do you do?” she asked, after thirty minutes of discussion about her cake decorating skills. “Did you go into biotech liked you planned?”

“For a whole five months, yeah. I got a job in R&D at Benetech Laboratories the summer before Kayla died. I got fired for missing too many days during my probation, but I would’ve had to quit anyway, the work was too involved for me to have enough time for Alyssa.”

“That’s a shame,” she said softly, knowing exactly how it felt to pass up on a dream career for family. As much as she loved the career she’d stumbled into by chance, not getting to take the bar still stung all these years later.

“I’m over it. I teach the LEGO and robotics clubs at Midtown and a couple other schools twenty hours a week, and I got my Transitional C Certificate last year, so I sub when I need some extra cash. The pay’s good and Alyssa can come with me to the after-school sessions, so I don’t have to worry about childcare,” he said. “Kayla’s life insurance meant I could buy an apartment outright, so I only have to make enough to cover the utilities and expenses. It’s hard some months but I make it work and I love what I do, plus I get to spend most of my time with Alyssa.”

Michelle extended her hand in a _thwip_ gesture. “And how about …?”

Peter fiddled with something on his watch, and Michelle felt a faint buzz of pressure against her eardrums. “Privacy cloaking,” he explained. “And not so much these days. I swing around a few times a month and I keep an eye out for anything major, but once Kayla died, I couldn’t risk leaving Alyssa an orphan.”

“Does she know?”

“I’m a dumbass who doesn’t know how to hide his suit, so yes,” he said with a wry grin. “And she’s inherited some of my powers – she’s sticky, heals fast and she never gets sick, so I’ve had to talk to her about it. She’s grown up knowing how important it is not to tell anyone.”

“How did you find out she’s enhanced?”

“When she first started crawling, she didn’t stop when she reached the wall,” Peter grinned. “Do you know how impossible it is to baby-proof a house when the baby can crawl on every surface? May laughed in my face every time I got stressed about it.”

Parenting a toddler had been hard enough without adding gravity-defying adhesiveness to the unerring pursuit of sharp corners and anything breakable, and Michelle was glad that Maya was just an average child. “What’ll you do when she decides she wants to copy her dad?” She didn’t say _if_ , because if Alyssa Parker had inherited even a sliver of her dad’s boundless compassion and desire to save the world, she’d be swinging around NYC in spandex by her fifteenth birthday.

“Panic?” he said. “I already have one Spider-Kid to deal with, I don’t think I’ll ever be ready for another.”

“Spider-Kid?”

“I met this kid last year when I was teaching at his school. Our spider-senses did this weird recognition thing, and I instantly knew he was like me and vice-versa, so I held him back after class and jumped up to stick to the ceiling. I thought he was gonna pass out, but then he just started _talking_ and he hasn’t stopped since.”

If there was a heaven, Michelle thought that Tony Stark was most likely sitting on a cloud, cackling away to himself and muttering about karma. “Are you _mentoring_ him, Peter?”

Peter sniffed. “I’m teaching him how to be Spider-Man,” he said, a forced air of dignity about him. “I guess you could call that mentoring.”

She’d seen blurry footage of Spider-Man swinging around in an inverted version of his suit, red on black instead of the other way around, and had assumed that Peter had just been changing things up a little, but apparently not. “I’d _definitely_ call that mentoring,” she said solemnly, cracking up when Peter stuck his tongue out.

“He’s a really good kid. Just turned fifteen, _super_ intelligent, an incredible artist. He’s not going to stop doing what he does, so I’m trying to keep him as safe as I can.” He sought her gaze, his shoulders hunched a little defensively. “You’re not going to call me out for enabling a teenager?”

“I assume you’re not dragging him off to Germany to fight your super-powered ex-friends?” she asked mildly. “Then no. You’re equipping him with the training he needs to survive, because if he’s anything like you were, he’s not going to give up any time soon.”

Peter’s shoulders relaxed, and Michelle was surprised that her opinion still seemed to matter to him. “I tried to get him to quit. That went about as well as when May and Tony tried to talk me out of being Spider-Man. So I got Pepper to add him to my lab in the city, helped him design a safer suit, and started teaching him everything I know about being Spider-Man.”

“And what did you do after those first five minutes?” she said, laughing as Peter aimed a middle finger in her direction. “You’re doing a good thing. He’s never going to be 100% safe, but he definitely stands a better chance with you in his corner.”

“I hope so,” Peter said. “I’m trying to persuade him to tell his parents, but his dad’s a cop and not a fan of vigilante superheroes, so he’s not convinced he’d have their support.”

Michelle was about to reply when she was interrupted by a faint cry from Maya’s room. “I have to go,” she said, getting to her feet.

“Go, go,” Peter told her, standing and shooing her off. “I’ll text you and we can work out a play date for the girls.”

“Thanks for listening,” she said, feeling like something had shifted back into place between the two of them. They belonged to a shitty, exclusive club, and the shared trauma and grief went a long way to dispel any lingering awkwardness. “’Night, Peter.”

“’Night, Em.” He disappeared behind his own door, and she paused for a long moment before heading to Maya’s bedroom to find her daughter restlessly shifting under the bedcovers, mumbling _Daddy_ with tears spiking her eyelashes.

Michelle climbed into bed next to her, gently stroking her face and murmuring wordless nothings, soothing her back into untroubled sleep. Maya shifted a few times before letting out a protracted sigh and relaxing, her body going limp.

Michelle watched her sleep for a while before her phone screen briefly lit up, drawing her attention. She snagged her phone to find that Peter had sent a message asking if Maya was OK, and replied with a thumbs up, receiving the same in return.

Satisfied that Maya was nightmare free and sleeping peacefully, Michelle curled up on the chaise section of the couch, pulling a throw over herself. The living room was lit only by the soft glow of the Christmas tree lights, and the quiet was soothing.

She realized with a start that it was almost midnight, and that she’d spent the best part of four hours talking to Peter. When deciding to move back to Queens, she’d wondered if she’d bump into him or any of their mutual friends, but she hadn’t anticipated living right opposite him and dropping straight back into their friendship and its easy back and forth. Despite the emotionally loaded nature of their talk, it had felt natural, like no time at all had passed since their last proper conversation.

She’d regretted pulling away from her friends long before moving back to New York, but had convinced herself that childhood friendships rarely lasted into adulthood, and that she could never be just friends with Peter after their drifting apart. However, it seemed like Peter had no problem leaving their relationship in the past and focusing on their friendship.

She’d never had a large circle of friends, content with her own company and that of a select few people who made it past her defensive barriers. Even in Chicago, she’d had acquaintances rather than friends until she’d met Christopher and had been absorbed into his friendships. He’d loved deeply and with abandon, collecting friends like she collected books, each one treasured for their own merits.

Peter was affable and easy to like, but his friendship group was small – since they’d started talking again, he hadn’t mentioned anyone other than Ned and Betty, and, surprisingly, Flash. She suspected his desire to keep his alter-ego secret, combined with protecting the people who _did_ know, made him reluctant to get too close to people.

She was on the verge of sleep when she startled, suddenly aware of someone leaning over her. She jerked upright to find Maya standing there, her arms wrapped around the neck of her well-loved Spider-Man Kawaii plushie.

“Mommy, can I sleep in your bed tonight?” Maya said, using her shoulder to push back a curl that had escaped from her sleep bonnet and stuck to her tear-dampened cheek.

Michelle opened her arms and Maya snuggled against her. “Let’s have a sleepover here,” she said, tucking the throw around them as Maya snuffled, her head pillowed against Michelle’s chest and Spidey still squeezed tightly in her arms.

Sometimes Michelle couldn’t sleep in her own bed, the empty side too much to bear, and she knew that tonight was one of those nights. Maya’s warmth was comforting, and as Michelle began to drift back towards sleep, she wondered if Peter still had nights when he couldn’t face sleeping in his bed without Kayla by his side, or if the grief ever wrapped itself around his lungs and made it hard to take a full breath.

She’d been repeatedly told that time would heal her, but even if she lived for a hundred years, she couldn’t imagine a day where missing Christopher didn’t make her ache with grief.

Something told her Peter felt the same way.


End file.
